Page 14

14

holky

The second-floor lounge was like the scene of a beer commercial gone rogue—bottles clinking and guys laughing too loudly, with their cheeks flushed from booze and bullshit. The moment Dog and I stepped in, a wave of hoots and chirps rolled our way. We were late to the party, and everyone knew it.

I slapped Dog on the back. “Looks like we’ve got some catching up to do.”

Logan raised his drink with a grin. “Where were they, Riley? Nels just got back, but we were about to send the Saint Bernards out after you.”

Riley shot me a look and then turned to the group. “Found lazy-ass Dog passed out in his room. Holky showed up when we were leaving. The fucking idiot had been out wandering in the snow.”

Smooth. Bald-faced lie, but smooth.

“Leave it to Holky,” Gabe said, raising an eyebrow. “Hope you didn’t get frostbite.”

Harpy gestured toward the back. “Pizza. The hotel said they’ll bring more if we need it, so get in there.”

My stomach rumbled at the mere mention of food.

Dog glanced at me. “Hungry?”

“Hell yeah. Let’s go.”

There were several kinds of pizza, a few sandwiches, and one sad, untouched bowl of salad. Off to the side, a cooler brimmed with beer bottles buried deep in ice and glistening like treasures.

Dog got there first, and I was still stacking slices on my plate when he called out, “Holky, look at this.” Wearing a big grin, he held up a bottle. “They’ve got Axe Man.”

“IPA?” I asked.

“Fuck yeah. One of the best.”

That grin—part goofy, part something I shouldn’t have been noticing in a room full of teammates—hit me square in the chest. I shifted my plate to one hand and held out the other. “Hit me.”

Dog passed me a bottle and grabbed one for himself. “Where should we sit?”

Like I gave a damn, as long as it was next to him.

“Here’s a good place,” Packy called, standing by a couch near the front. He patted the arm like he’d been waiting for us. “This one’s got your names on it.”

It struck me as weird that a prime couch was empty, but I was too hungry—and too busy trying not to stare at Dog—to question it. I nodded for Dog to go first and then followed.

As we reached the couch, Packy grinned. “Have a seat, boys. You must be worn out if Dog’s been sleeping all this time. And Holky, what the hell were you thinking, going full urban explorer during the worst blizzard this area’s had in fifty years?”

As we sat, Dog asked, “Is it really? I’m not sure I’ve ever seen this much snow all at once.”

“Fifty years, that’s what the news said.” Nels, lounging on the sofa next to us, lifted his beer. “Saint Paul’s basically shut down until further notice.”

Gabe was sitting in a nearby chair. “Don’t worry, Dog. You’ll get your fill of blizzards in Buffalo.”

“Nothing like snow in Russia.” That came from behind us, and when I turned, I was surprised to see Abdulov sitting with Logan. “Sometimes is taller than me.”

Laughter erupted as everyone called bullshit and dared Abby to back it up.

“You motherfuckers see.” He stood and pulled out his phone, carefully scrolling with a thick finger. “Aha! Here. From trip to see Mamochka after her operation.”

He turned the screen toward us, and sure enough, the photo showed a mountain of snow towering over Abby. It was an amazing sight, since Abby’s a big guy—easily six-five and two-forty. That snowbank had him beat by at least half a foot.

“My boyfriend get lost in snow if I take him there,” he said casually, slipping his phone back into his pocket and heading off for another beer.

The room went quiet while we all exchanged looks.

Dog blinked. “He’s gay?”

I shrugged. Some of the guys around us followed suit, while a few others shook their heads.

Soon, the pizza was history and the beer supply had taken a serious hit. A couple of guys were drunk, and the rest of us were buzzing enough to forget we’d ever had filters. We swapped stories, rehashed our Stanley Cup win, and chirped each other so hard our stomachs ached from laughing.

Packy disappeared for a bathroom break, and when he returned, he was grinning like he’d solved world peace. “Listen up, boys. I have a brilliant idea.”

“That’s what you get for staring at your inspiration in the bathroom,” Richie Mason said. “Is it still three inches or has it grown?”

The room erupted.

Packy fired back over the laughter. “My wife never complains. Unlike your girlfriend, if she even exists.”

The howling grew louder.

When the noise died down, Packy got serious. “I’m telling you, this is gold. We’ve all had enough alcohol to make a game of truth or dare very interesting.”

Mason scoffed. “What is this, sophomore year of high school?”

“Fuck that,” Packy said. “This is the grown-up version. And to make it interesting, we’ll play in pairs. One question or dare per duo.”

Harpy raised an eyebrow. “Ground rules?”

“No limits,” Gabe said before anyone else could jump in. His grin was a little too wide when he added, “We’re brothers. What happens here stays here.”

Somewhere in the back of my mind, an alarm bell started going off, but I’d had one too many IPAs to figure out why. I glanced at Dog, and he was already looking at me. It was quick—a second, maybe less—but something passed between us. He looked away, and I swallowed hard.

“I’m in,” Brody said.

Logan gave Abby a look of terror. “Looks like we’re partners. God help me.”

Abby put an arm around Logan’s shoulders and squeezed. “Is okay, honey. I make it good for you.”

After more laughter, Harpy made the couple assignments, and I was glad he put Dog and me together.

The game kicked off with pure chaos when Bjork and Jackson asked for a dare. No surprise there since they were two of the team’s biggest showboats.

The captains—Harpy, Packy, and Blunt—were asking the questions and handing out dares. After the group huddled for a second, Harpy gave Bjork and Jackson an evil grin. “Lose the shirts and lick beer off each other’s chests.”

“That all you got?” Jackson grinned as he peeled off his shirt.

Bjork pulled his sweater and undershirt over his head, then smirked at Jackson. “I’ll go first.”

He dropped to the floor, hands behind his head like he was sunbathing, and Jackson poured a thimbleful of beer onto his chest. Jackson proceeded to lick it off with theatrical flair before wagging his eyebrows at the room.

We roared while they switched places. Bjork poured a generous stream onto Jackson’s chest and started licking. When the beer trickled down Jackson’s stomach, Bjork followed it all the way south. He then sat up and pounded his chest like a caveman.

The room lost it.

And so it went. One by one, each pair stepped up to take their turn. Mason and Davis picked “truth” and confessed to a recent four-way with puck bunnies that sounded more chaotic than hot. Gabe and Brody asked for a dare and were told they had to go to “second base” while we all watched. When they tried to convince us that moving from kissing lips to kissing necks qualified, we all booed while a few guys threw popcorn from the snack table.

Abby and Logan wisely went with a dare, which turned into a full-body comedy sketch when Abby had to hoist Logan onto his shoulders and carry him around the room. Logan flailed like a man in a wind tunnel, and Abby looked like he was training for an Olympic strongman competition.

We were all doubled over from Abby’s piggyback lap, but as soon as Packy called out, “Next—Holky and Dog,” my pulse tripped over itself and kicked into overdrive.

There was no way in hell we’d do a truth round. I could already feel the team circling like sharks, waiting to ask what we’d really been doing upstairs, so I said, “Dare.”

Dog’s head snapped toward me, and he was wearing the biggest what-the-fuck expression I’d seen in a while, but I nodded. We could handle licking beer off each other or barking like dogs. No sweat.

Packy raised an eyebrow and looked at Harpy, whose grin was a little too smug. When he didn’t confer with the alternate captains, I realized we’d been set up. They’d planned this while they were waiting for us to come downstairs.

“Since you’re both straight,” Harpy said, dragging out the word like it had quotation marks around it, “you have to play chicken.”

Dog’s brows pinched together so tightly it looked painful. “Like the pool kind? Because I’m not getting on his shoulders.”

“Nope,” Packy said. “The chicken you’re going to play involves kissing.”

Riley jumped in wearing a big grin. “You have to go nose to nose and move in to kiss. First one to flinch loses.”

“ On the mouth, ” Brody added. “A real kiss. No nose boops.”

Around us, the room erupted with catcalls, wolf whistles, and exaggerated moans. Someone shouted, “Don’t go easy on him, Holky. You have to use tongue.”

I replayed their words to make sure I hadn’t missed something. This was only pretend. Get close, lean in, smirk a little, add some dramatic flair, and back off at the last second. An easy, harmless show with no intimacy involved.

Dog stared at me like a deer caught in the headlights, if the deer also suspected the headlights might really want to kiss him.

I leaned in and whispered, “We’ve got this. I’ll back away at the last minute.”

“Okay,” he said, the word coming out tight and about half an octave higher than usual.

“No whispering,” Gabe barked. “Get up there and do it.”

A few hoots echoed around the room as Dog and I stood. We laughed—forced, too loud, and about as casual as a fire drill—and walked to the front like we were heading to our own executions. Every pair of eyes was locked on us, and not a damn one of them blinked.

I turned to face Dog and nodded, trying to give him my most confident smile. It probably landed somewhere between “we’ve got this” and “we’re going down.”

A muscle jumped in his cheek, and he whispered, “This is stupid.”

“Stupid’s our specialty,” I whispered back.

Packy clapped his hands, loud enough to make us jump. “Start,” he said. “We don’t have all night.”

This will be easy. We’ve already made a plan, so all we have to do is stick to it.

Except the second I looked into Dog’s eyes, the plan blew right out the fucking window. He was locked onto me like he was starving. His big brown eyes had always been expressive, but now they shimmered with so many emotions, I wasn’t sure where to begin.

The room was already in chaos—laughter, chirps, chairs scraping, and at least three guys yelling that their phones were out and recording—but it all dimmed as if Dog and I had slipped underwater. We were alone, caught in a bizarre, high-stakes, hormone-soaked staring contest.

His cheeks flushed, and I slid my hands up his warm, solid arms. When I skimmed over his biceps, his breath caught. I almost pulled back, but then he touched me. His hands found my waist and gripped it tightly. Was he afraid I’d bolt if he didn’t hold on?

We leaned in slowly. Our noses brushed and our foreheads bumped. I breathed him in—warm skin, clean sweat, and a hint of spice. Everything inside me went slippery, and I wondered if I was about to black out.

I glanced at his lips, which were parted just enough to be dangerous. A deep, red flush colored them, and my gaze lingered. I was too into him to look away.

This was a game, but I wanted to kiss him. It wasn’t because of the dare or because we were supposed to fake it for the guys. I wanted to do it because it felt inevitable. We were standing on the edge of something we couldn’t stop, and gravity was doing the rest.

His gaze flicked to my mouth, and we started the game. We’d both played chicken before, and we knew how it was done: move in, draw back, and smirk like we were teasing each other. We’d chicken out at the last second and sit down like a couple of idiots with our hearts still intact.

But something went wrong. The longer we stood there, the harder it became to remember how the hell to back out. We leaned in again, closer this time, and somewhere deep in my brain, a voice started shrieking, “Abort mission.” My body ignored the warning completely.

We paused when our lips were a hair’s breadth apart. We were supposed to pull back, but he didn’t move, and I didn’t want to. I wasn’t afraid of the kiss; I was terrified of what might happen if we didn’t kiss, if we blew this chance. His lips were so close I could feel their heat on mine, so all I’d have to do was lean forward a little more.

We were both trembling because we were on the knife’s edge, hanging in the space between almost and fuck it . One of us had to pull back, and it was supposed to be me. I began to ease away, giving the guys the dramatic finish they’d been hoping for.

Then Dog went for it. The entire room gasped, and my brain imploded at the sensation of his lips on mine. They were soft and warm and absolutely perfect. This wasn’t some awkward first try, and it wasn’t for laughs. We were sharing a real kiss that said things. It was deep and slow, like we’d been waiting forever and weren’t wasting another second now that we had permission.

The room faded until there was only Dog and me. His fingers were curled tightly in the fabric of my shirt, and I slid my arms around his back, holding him like I never wanted to let go. He tasted like beer and pizza, but there was something sweeter—Dog, I guess, finally giving me the kiss I’d needed longer than I could remember.

Every time we should’ve stopped, we didn’t. He broke away, leaning back until we were a breath apart, but I caught his bottom lip and kissed him again, slower this time. I couldn’t help myself. You only get one first kiss, and I wanted to make it count. He kissed me back, harder now, and then slipped his tongue into my mouth.

Someone whistled, and a voice called out, “Enough, guys. Damn.”

Fuck that, because I couldn’t have stopped if I’d tried. Dog and I clung to each other like our lives depended on it, and this kiss—this impossibly perfect kiss—was the only thing keeping us alive. Our tongues played, but we kept it romantic instead of fiery. If we never kissed again, I wanted to remember Nate and Chuck’s moment in heaven.

When we finally pulled apart, it was only because we had to breathe. I opened my eyes, and he was already looking at me, cheeks even more flushed than before, pupils blown wide, and wearing a smile so soft it wrecked me.

If this had been an actual game of chicken, he’d have cracked a joke. I’d have called him dude and punched him in the arm. But that didn’t happen. Instead, he moved in again and rested his forehead against mine while we caught our breath. When we parted again, our eyes remained locked.

I’d known coming down here that things might get out of control between us, and sure enough, they had. Whatever the hell we’d started would take some time to figure out.

We may have been in trouble, but damn if it didn’t feel right.